THE IMPACT OF THE DECLINING PANCASILA

DEMOCRACY IN THE POST- INDONESIA

REFORMATION

Muhyar Fanani

FISIP UIN WALISONGO

Abstract - The practice of democracy post-reformation

era tends to be a more “liberal” version. Since the

amendment of the 1945 Constitution in 1999-2002, the

politics was becoming very open. However, some

experts said that Indonesian democracy after the

Reformation was not the “Pancasila democracy”

anymore. The objective of this study was to identify the

malpractices of democracy through logical structure of

Pancasila as a political ideology. The writer tried to

understand the gap between the ideal and the real

democratic practice in the post-Reformation era. The

data in this study were collected from library, journals,

and the websites. The data were analyzed in the light of

Soekarno-Hatta’s theory on Pancasila democracy. This

study concluded that in the post-reformation Indonesia,

the implementation of Pancasila democracy has been

declined. The decline could be seen at malpractices of

post-reformation democracy such as political oligarchy,

money politics, and procedural-transactional politics.

The writer recommend to Indonesian political scientists

to rearrange political order based on the logical

structures of Pancasila democracy through the fifth

limited amendment of the 1945 Constitution. The logical

structures are mufakat (full agreement, consensus),

perwakilan (representativeness), and musyawarah

(deliberation)

Keywords: Pancasila democracy, consensus,

representativeness, deliberation

I. INTRODUCTION

The Reformation has great effects on many areas.

Politics, economy, culture, social, security, and

environment are areas that changed rapidly [1]. After

the amendment of the 1945 Constitution, politics has

become very open. Voting becomes very common to

choose public leaders in all level of leadership [2].

Some experts said that Indonesian democracy after

the Reformation is not a Pancasila democracy. It

tends to be a liberal democracy[3].

As long as Pancasila becomes the national

foundation, all aspects of public life in the country

should be based on Pancasila [4]. Therefore,

Indonesian democracy after the Reformation is still

Pancasila democracy [5]. However, implementing

Pancasila democracy in this era is quite hard. There

are many challenges lie ahead. This paper tries to

identify malpractices of Pancasila democracy

implementation in the post-reformation. This

identification is very important to revitalize Pancasila

democracy.

II. THE PANCASILA DEMOCRACY

The founding fathers of Indonesia believed that

democracy in Indonesia should root from the people

heart [6]. Sukarno since 1920s crystallized the spirit

of the people that could become the foundation of

togetherness. After long and deep thinking, he found

that Pancasila was the best foundation for this

country.

Though democracy in Indonesia is quite

promising, its quality still needs to be improved. To

this day, Indonesian democracy still leaves an irony

and paradox [7]. Indonesian democracy is still not

fully able to meet the democratic criteria as expected

by the founding fathers. Mohammad Hatta, for

example, declared that democracy in Indonesia was

not a liberal democracy, but Pancasila democracy [8].

What is the Pancasila democracy? Hatta wrotes:

"Democracy in the Pancasila system is not

superficial democracy or democracy as a mere

mask. It is a democracy which must be blessed

by the One Almighty God, as the first

principle of Pancasila lead throughout the

ideals of our state … Our democracy must be

217Copyright © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 129Third International Conference on Social and Political Sciences (ICSPS 2017)

run based on truth, justice, honesty, kindness,

brotherhood, and humanity. …”[8]

Bung Hatta, as he is usually called, asserted that:

"Democracy adopted by the Indonesian nation

is not a democracy that seek the most votes,

but a democracy guided by the inner wisdom

of deliberation among representatives. Under

the frame of the One Almighty God and the

basis of a just and civilized humanity, the

democracy to be implemented in the country

must be in accordance with truth, justice,

kindness, honesty, purity, and beauty …"[8]

Now Indonesian people are facing a test of

how to create a more substantive and essential

democratic practice. In this context, Hatta’s statement

is still relevant: “In the daily life, Pancasila is only

performed at lips. Indonesian people who internalize

Pancasila as a belief rooted into their heart. The

people forgot that all five principles are inter-

connected. They don’t stand separately.” [9] Now

Indonesian people are dealing with a lure of sheep

democracy, in which the elected is the one who has

large muscles (big funds from wherever source may

come and control of media without limits to attack

and seize power). That is what Jeffrey A. Winter

called an oligarchy [10]. Can the sheep democracy

produce the best and wisest leader among the

candidates?

Indonesian current democracy tends to

implement liberal democracy that contradicts to

Pancasila and the history of the national struggle. The

system of leadership recruitment is conformed with

the principle of "financial almighty" and the principle

of "people led by the benefit or finance". Meanwhile,

Soekarno/Hatta became leaders were not because of

their wealth but because of their intelligence and

wisdom [11]. As the founder of Pancasila

Democracy, Soekarno explains:

”For us, Indonesia nation, democracy contains

three main ingredients. Democracy contains

the principle called agreement, namely

consensus. Second, democracy contains

representation principle. Finally, democracy

contains, for us, deliberation (musyawarah)

principle.... From such deliberation, the

consensus comes, the agreement emerges

stronger than a forced resolution through

majority voices....”[12]

Democracy after reformation tends to neglect

the three principles of Pancasila democracy that were

stipulated by Soekarno. The lack of mufakat could be

seen in the big number of voting in decision making

in parliament (local and national). Meanwhile, many

factors could influence the result of voting especially

money, capital, interest (personal, narrow, group,

party) that contaminate the process of mufakat. The

lack of representativeness could be seen in the

absence of group delegation (utusan golongan) such

as thinkers, budayawan (humanist), sastrawan

(writers), seniman (artists), lectures, teachers,

laborers, fishermen, and farmers. The absence of

them reflects that democracy does not absorb the

important voices of nation heart yet. The lack of

musyawarah could be seen in many processes of

meeting in parliament to decide something. The

discussion tends to be in low quality, to use shallow

and superficial argumentation, to neglect accurate

data, to orient image projection, to choose narrow

group orientation, and to neglect public interest.

Meanwhile, musyawarah needs deep understanding

and high commitment to build public good.

Musyawarah needs hikmah (wisdom) in discussion

that consists of three things, they are deep

knowledge, strong commitment to build public good

and bring public interest into reality, and piety.

Neglecting those three principles means conducting

malpractices of Pancasila democracy.

III. MALPRACTISES OF PANCASILA DEMOCRACY

In the post-reform era, Pancasila democracy faces

malpractices that weaken good willing to implement

the pure Pancasila democracy. The malpractices

consist of six items; political oligarchy, money

politics, procedural-transactional politics, political

dynasty, political recompense, and political myopic.

1. Political oligarchy

Indonesia in the post-reform era tends to fall into

oligarchy in the type of group oligarchy [13]. In his

famous book, Jeffrey A. Winters writes that the

oligarchy relies on the strength of material resources

and strives for the defense of wealth in them. This

situation, gradually, leads to inequalities material.

Inequalities of materials produce inequality of

political power. The condition occurring in Indonesia

after the reform can be called a collective ruling

oligarchy. This kind of oligarchy takes control

collectively through institutions which have norms or

rules. The oligarch, despite a minority, is able to

work together maintaining wealth and ruling a huge

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group of people. The case happening in Indonesia

after the reformation era is actually not something

new. It also happened in Greek-Rome [10].

The oligarchy in Indonesia is not vanished at all after

the fall of the New Order. It transforms from the

patron-client type to the collective one. Richard

Robinson and Vedi R Hadiz in Power Reorganizing

in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of

Market assert that the oligarchy in Indonesia has not

basically ruined after the fall of Suharto. Instead, it

continues to transform by adjusting with a new

political context in Indonesia based on the neo-

liberalism philosophy, such as democratization,

decentralization, and deregulation. After the

economic crisis in 1998, the oligarchy with its variety

survives and returns to be “a major actor” within the

business world in Indonesia. Christian Chua agrees

with this view. He confirms that institutional changes

after the new order turn out to be exploited by the old

forces to maintain “power.”[14]

Oligarchy in Indonesia could not be erased by

regulations. The presence of the act No.8/2015

revising a number of rules in the act No. 1/2015 (on

Stipulation of Government Regulation in lieu of acts

No. 1/2014 on the election of governors, regents and

mayors) has not been able to address this issue. This

confirms Winters’ opinion that the oligarchs and

oligarchy could not be removed by the change of

political procedure into democracy, but rather

through the equitable distribution of material

resources. Reducing oligarchy means not to give a

big political power to the little number of people

[15].

2. Money politics

Another malpractice of Pancasila democracy is

money politics. Many political parties in Indonesia

prefer to choose the short way in gaining voters by

giving money to them. Why? This is caused by the

weakness of the internal political party especially in

breeding, communication, and building public trust.

The weak parties’ performances result in the

candidates stuck in a vicious circle of political

recompense. This drives the parties’ candidates who

sit in the parliament are caught in various cases of

corruption, bribery and abuse of power [16]. To meet

the high cost of elections and to run the activities of

political parties, they get forced to look for illicit

funds. [17]

3. Procedural-transactional politics

Next malpractice of Pancasila democracy is

procedural-transactional politics. Oligarchy leads to

political power controlled by a group of capital

owners who have different interests and try to

hostage each other. These strategic positions are

occupied by people who can give advantages to the

capital owners [17]. When public positions are

obtained by political dealings between the president

and supporting political parties, the policy will

advantageously turn to the parties and ignore the

“sacred” duties of the state and democracy.

Manuel Luis Quezon emphasizes that "My loyalty to

my party ends when my loyalty to my country

begins." In essence, a political party is merely a

vehicle to deliver its cadres for “jihad” promoting

and struggling for the interests of people represented,

not the interests of the parties’ elites only [18].

Therefore, the procedural-transactional democracy

should be abolished.

4. Political dynasty

The further malpractice is political dynasty. Post

reform Indonesia paves the ways for certain dynasty

to buy votes because the dynasty has wealth and

prosperity to do so. It confirms a statement of Robert

Michel that leaders in a democratic organizational

leadership, tend to grip power and undermine

democratic principles. This is called as the iron law

of oligarchy [19]. In line with Michel, Putnam also

reminds that the elites of politics who are in power

tend to keep perpetuating themselves in power (self-

perpetuating) although it results in the decay of their

institutions [19].

Why can this political dynasty grow in a democracy?

Inge Amundsen and Nico Harjanto explain that the

weakness of political parties in carrying out the

regeneration function, selection and promotion, leads

to the emergence of such political dynasty. Therefore,

to remove political dynasty, supervision and law

enforcement which is frightening have to be done.

Another important step is to strengthen the institution

of political parties as well as to expand the number of

intelligent voter [20].

5. Political recompense

The very high cost of post-reform politics in

Indonesia gets cadres drowned. When people are

about to drown, they will hold anything they can in

order to rise and survive. With the holding, the

drowning person will survive. The problem is

whether the helper is a good person or a bad person.

When meeting the good one, they are lucky. But

when the helper is just like an evil capital owner, the

drowning person will be safe, but they will fall into a

slavery of the capital owners. They will be like

figureheads with no spirit and soul. They will get

stuck on the endless political recompense. From

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Sabang to Merauke, indications of this type of

politics become increasingly evident. There is no

other compensation except money, position and work

contract in exploiting natural resources. The

implementation of acts on regional autonomy policy

makes “the game” easier for politicians to play.

6. Political myopic

Poor quality of cadres in political parties causes the

emergence of political myopic. The politicians

become “short-sighted.” They are no longer able to

look far into the future. They are only able to see

things for their short term. More terribly, they can

only see the material objects. The nation’s idealism,

the nation founding fathers’ idealism, and the

nation’s interest for, let us just say, the next 30 years

cannot be seen.

Signs of political myopic have been already apparent.

Look at the legislation system in post reform era of

this country. Legislative process is run by the cow-

trading strategies. The legislative process should not

be guided by pragmatic interests which takes place

on a transactional basis. Mahfud MD stated that the

cow-trading legislation is a real phenomenon. At the

beginning of the reformation era, the process of

legislation drafting was actually financed by

foreigners. As a result, a lot of acts are nuanced by

liberal values in favor of foreign interests. For

example, there are acts on oil and gas, acts on

minerals, energy, and coal (mining), and some other

acts, all of which is contrary to the article 33 of the

1945 Constitution and the basic principles and

purposes of this nation [21].

To overcome those problems, Indonesian people

must revitalize Pancasila democracy into 1945

Constitution through the next amendment. At least,

there are four points of the last-four-amendment

results that are not in accordance with Pancasila

philosophy as a driving value of the nation, namely

leadership unaccountability, absence of group

delegation in MPR, problem of original Indonesian

citizen, and high cost politics. Then, the next

amendment is needed to make sure that the

democracy in Indonesia performs the forth principle

of Pancasila.

.

IV. CONCLUSION

The discussion above shows that after reformation,

the implementation of Pancasila democracy tends to

decline. The impact of the decline is the emergence

of some malpractices of Pancasila democracy. As

long as Pancasila as the state philosophy was agreed,

all regulations in Indonesia must refer to it including

the 1945 Constitution Amendment. Some

malpractices in the implementation of the 1945

Constitution Amendment should become a basis to

redesign Indonesian politics in order to be compatible

with the values of the nation's majesty.

Implementation of the values of Pancasila democracy

into the fifth amendment of 1945 Constitution is an

important priority. This heavy task cannot certainly

be delivered to whoever does not have the majesty of

nation. Arabic proverb says "Faqidusy Syai’ la

yu'thi" (people who do not have anything, would not

be able to give something). Let us ask, could this

nation distinguish between gold and pan? The answer

was actually clear. However, as a result of money

politics in the campaign, the war of printed /

electronic media that had been a very liberal-

capitalistic, the weaknesses of punishment to any

violations of campaign regulation, a little number of

educated and enlightened people, and a huge number

of hungry people, then, the condition was not a

normal condition. Building a system to make only the

wise people who can sit in DPR and MPR is very

urgent. They sat there not because of their wealth, but

because of their wisdom. Therefore, the system that

performs three principles namely consensus,

representativeness, and deliberation must be

implemented soon

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